Super dodgy P.E.A. supplement from Amazon

[lessthanhalf]

It is obviously possible to get very dubious products from what would seem to be a much safer source than black market Chinese peptide dealers, where so far I have had zero problems.
After a ton of research I bought some palmitoylethanolamide PEA capsules on the US Amazon site as it had a better range than the Aus one. And to my surprise they actually worked, after 10 or 15 years of low grade abdominal pain every morning, despite the tramadol, it was more or less gone. Pain was from ulcerative colitis with irritable bowel on top.
When I had nearly ran out I went to buy some more but that brand was not available so I got a different one. When they arrived I was suspicious that the bottle was half the size of the previous one, and the capsules were half the size as well, so I weighed them. The scales are accurate to about 5mg or so , the capsules weighed 300 mg which was interesting as they supposedly had 1000mg of PEA, plus about 450mg of quercetin luteolin etc etc. Not really possible to accidentally sell a pill with less than 1/4 of the advertised stuff inside.
Amazon was happy enough to provide a refund, but I was a bit surprised that something so dodgy made it through the system and had positive reviews. Unfortunately given that they are happy to scam their customers on price/quantity, I have zero faith that they contain the advertised substances.
Brand was Rim Tuku. My first review was deleted, but the second where I just included the facts and that the product was fraudulent got through. Thankfully does not seem to be still for sale.

 

[4StrandKnot]

It's great to hear that you had such a favorable response to the PEA!

Amazon is also a storefront, which means third parties can sell their wares on Amazon.com without any other sort of connection to Bezos and company. The review business, yes it is a business, is yet another story.

I had an issue with fake saffron, which wasn't returnable because it was food. I left a scathing review. Someone from Amazon followed up with me, but I was on international travel at the time and I missed it. I only had a week to respond and that window had closed.

The way to tell whether you are buying directly from Amazon, or from a third party, is to check for the shipper and seller listing on the item itself. Also keep in mind that Amazon can be the shipper for 3rd party sales -- these products are typically marked "Fulfilled by Amazon."

3rd party sales are also not bound by Amazon's return policy and are free to write their own, unless they are marked as "Fulfilled by Amazon."

 

[lessthanhalf]

PEA is a very rare "supplement" that has lots - maybe 100, of good quality randomised controlled clinical trials in humans, plus hundreds in animals and cells. They show it is an effective analgesic for many different types of pain, that increases in effects over 1-2 months of taking it daily. And it has quite solid evidence that it reduces inflammation in many body systems. Many prescription drugs have less solid research than that. And most supplements have very little evidence of efficacy in human trials. Considering the severe lack of good, long term safe, non addictive painkillers I am surprised it is not used a lot more. It has amazingly no known adverse effects, and I find it hard to believe that trying opiates, cannabis or gabapentin or even NSAIDS first , before this, would be a good idea. I am generally not a big fan of supplements as usually the evidence base is weak.

 

[Nathanologist]

PEA is a very rare "supplement" that has lots - maybe 100, of good quality randomised controlled clinical trials in humans, plus hundreds in animals and cells. They show it is an effective analgesic for many different types of pain, that increases in effects over 1-2 months of taking it daily. And it has quite solid evidence that it reduces inflammation in many body systems. Many prescription drugs have less solid research than that. And most supplements have very little evidence of efficacy in human trials. Considering the severe lack of good, long term safe, non addictive painkillers I am surprised it is not used a lot more. It has amazingly no known adverse effects, and I find it hard to believe that trying opiates, cannabis or gabapentin or even NSAIDS first , before this, would be a good idea. I am generally not a big fan of supplements as usually the evidence base is weak.

I wonder if it would help those of us suffering with intense allodynia side effects of GLP1 meds. I’m laying here in bed trying to fall asleep while my skin tells my brain it’s on fire everywhere. Not cool.

 

[lessthanhalf]

It has very solid evidence for efficacy for pain from peripheral neuropathy, multiple clinical trials in humans for neuropathic pain, one of the types of discomfort it can cause is cold allodynia, (in toes feet legs hands) which I have in my toes from a obesity caused peripheral neuropathy, and one of the reasons I tried taking it. I cannot say for sure it has helped for that for me personally, but given that all the alternative options have a lot more side effects, it is a pretty safe option to try. I do get that weird slightly painful skin effect from tiny increases in dose of reta, on about 4mg/week ( already taking 15mg tiz ), but it is too inconsistent and intermittent to say whether the PEA helps or not.